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Dialed In Ep. 212: Mobile World Congress madness begins

2012-02-27
hey guys welcome to another episode of dialed in today is Monday the 27th of februari and we are going to talk about all the new mobile world congress news that is coming out of the show basically Mobile World Congress has arrived in full force the premier European tech show for all things mobile phone related Mobile World Congress is getting bigger and wilder than ever so you know basically yesterday we had a ton of phones that hit as well as some tablets too we're talking folks from Samsung LG HTC Sony even lesser known companies like Huawei had some pretty bold statements yesterday and today so we're going to talk about all those things today we're joined by the awesome Lynn law hey Lynn hey glad you can join us and we have a special treat for you guys out there listen to the show for a while it's bonnie cha the the illustrious Bonnie cha joined us so you know give it give it a hand for her and we're going to be chatting about all the new stuff that came out of Mobile World Congress so if you guys don't know I'm sure you do but Mobile World Congress is the major show that happens in Barcelona in Spain and basically you know all these phone makers it used to be a lot of just purely European launches and global announcements but now kind of like sets the stage of what is gonna happen for the rest of the year including the US so it's become a really big show I think as far as mobile news yeah it's crazy because I mean you know from what i can tell i mean wasn't there like some first of all be good into all the details really quick but in a minute but I mean this I'm not this the first time that happened but we had two devices from HTC that were announced that were they announced actual US carriers yeah which is crazy it is because usually you know in the years passed that I've gone they you know announce these phones but they never have any us specific details they're always like oh well now's that later it's always kind of like global royal Europe or Asia but it's good to see that they're addressing the u.s. audience now I know it's it's pretty wild and then you know of course last week we talked about how Verizon had a presence it last year shown is supposed to have a presence at this year's show and that's pretty amazing so we've got you know basically like you know what is it the American invasion of Barcelona yeah so but it's pretty cool and just to jump into the news really quick you can check out a recap of day one I call the day one I wrote a really recap really quick recap of this but it's technically it's really day zero but there's a first day that we had folks there and it seems like the first day for everyone just because so many press conferences happen yeah we had first we had huawei and they made some really crazy boast saying that they had the fastest smartphone in the world right which is I mean hello that's yeah if for like you know for a minute or two you know i mean it's it's uh you guys don't know it's the ascend d quad which is doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but it's basically a smartphone that is running a quad-core chip that Huawei actually designs themselves yeah I found that interesting that they went with the chip that they made themselves instead of using you know an nvidia chip or polymer you know right exactly exactly so I mean it's it's it's interesting how they would you know come on stage and start talking about you know how this phone is you know the best yeah and in the fastest and all of that stuff especially when they're coming out with a with a phone that that's running a processor that's no one ever tested before hey but hey you know what I'll take it I'll take all the quad core news that we can get you know yeah it's like always really kind of stepping up their game because they've been known more for kind of lower end funds right you know like entry-level stuff but though though they did at was it just the other day at CES they showing off some global phones had ya had ice cream sandwich I was like one of the first ones actually I saw personally that had ice cream sandwich running Android 4.2 that's pretty interesting and then on top of that we had you know LG coming out with their LG 4x HD which is actually going to be a quad-core device and running Tegra 3 Nvidia's Tegra 3 chip so and they're there they're definitely bringing their game as well to this show yeah and one thing I wanted to bring up Roger had the story but it sounds like LG and Google are in talks of possibly doing a nexus phone which is oh yes interesting um you know some people thought maybe with the google motorola murderer that you know motorola would be like kind of the you know go to manufacturing for their nexus devices but i guess you know maybe this is google way of saying hey we're still committed to other manufacturers to and yeah i know that's that and actually i'm sure that would that would make LG very happy and samsung very upset which would Prime ya mean more happy definitely i'll deal is quick to say that nothing's been like set in stone or anything but they're definitely in talk so we'll see what happens we'll see who makes the next Nexus phone yeah and you know um now Lynn I know that you kind of had a chance to check out some of these these phones at least from not really in person in Barcelona but just just from you know checking out the news I mean do you think of the vu there's also the Optimus Vu which is the Galaxy Note competitor I mean that's an interesting device there too and they announced that at the show as well yeah I mean I think we were expecting anyways we call it vu or view I think Jessica likes for you but um me and bro oh yeah I I I like the way that sounds personally I don't know any way that way yes but yeah we're excited about it because it's kind of you know knocking on gala cenotes territory with the screen size and and we knew that it was going to be announced and they did announce it so it's a 5-inch screen and it's kind of like a tablet tablet phone kind of thing and it's going to be fast we believe so um at well it's not quad core but will be a dual core processor so we're kind of looking forward to that I'm looking forward to that are you are you looking forward to the stylus though I mean that's that's the question why was gonna ask you do you guys think that's gonna become the next trend like bigger phones with stylus is thi lai lai lai yeah I think it would just kind of been a weird thing if galaxy note was the only one that came out right listen no one else did anything yeah so then now that the LG is going to release their Optimus foods kind of like well maybe now if it if the people don't like it they're going to manufacture it anyways until maybe people really don't buy any them from all the manufacturers yeah but you know it's funny because you wonder can you really talk about this last week but can you really see yourself using a stylus that often I mean I tried to its ok but and sometimes it's kind of fun but I still just rather use my fingers if they're accurate and keyboard yeah yeah yeah it's like you know I don't want to drop anything I already drop stuff who knows maybe I'll affair yeah it might it might in you know there was also some other news to which I'm kind of you know jumping around here and off of the the chart but Roger also wrote about how Samsung mentioned to him that they weren't too happy with their tab and tablet sales and they hope to actually you know make some make up some ground with the note and to me that's sort of funny because i think the note is like you know a device that won't sell as well as a tablet you know but I fish me the thing with Samsung tablets is they have so many different models you know and then you like sighs different what was the last one they did the oh right they also announced the show the tab too right yeah yeah and I just I think that's kind of confusing to the conversion right well it's the difference and you know the ones i think the 7-inch and now that yeah and i think they need to kind of like narrow down there or just focus more and come out with less models but you know really distinct and really good models instead of releasing it we have a dozen tablet that you can choose from and actually that's that's sort of the approach that seems that LG is taking you know by consolidating their line and just focusing on a few phones now and and and i guess they're kind of taking a page out of apple's book and other folks you know trying to just you know make something more easier for consumers to find and think about and just grab in the store you know yeah so I mean and also actually HTC did launch a few phones as well actually three phones like we mentioned before basically they want the one that launched the One X and watches this whole line called the one called one right which is sort of confusing because you've got one out of many many and one yeah yes three into one you know so I don't know but um basically we have the One X which is which issues the second kind of funny because it is a quad-core device but that's only the European model it's so disappointing that the USB dual core correct yes yeah and so they announced that the dual core version is going to be out on AT&T you know in the spring I believe so I mean that's that's a real bummer because you know we wanted to see the first u.s. quad core smartphone right I mean there isn't one right right now I was gonna wear any of the other quad cores announced for us or just global right now I think they were all global yeah yeah cuz I'm it's really okay you've got the LG optimus and that's the alt that the LG 4x HD you remember um and then you have it's really it's really the HT HTC One X which is do it which is quad-core global um and then you've got that huge claim from Huawei which is the ascend d quad so you know but all these are global devices so I don't know what's going on maybe the carriage didn't want to you know grab something that was you know that would just like kind of drop like a big boulder into their money pond as it were financial stream their whole plan you know because I'm sure they have a lot of devices they'd like to sell first before someone you know they start telling us something that's so powerful yeah so but yeah so I mean we so speaking of HTC we've got we've got the the 1x which is quad-core we also have the let's see the 1s which is a device that it looks sort of like a what would you say like a it seems like basically let me just go back to the actual thing that we were checking out but basically like there are three different devices like the one the one x has a big like 4.5 inch screen whereas the other 1i 44.7 I'm just this is off the top my head and then sorry go ahead yeah than the one ex I mean the 1s has a 4.3 inch screen right yep and then I think the 1v think it's the same it's 3.7 inches 3.7 exactly so so like you have you know at the bottom and actually it's kinda interesting because the 1v was announced for tmobile that will actually have a tmobile availability no no no I'm sorry the 1s was one v doesn't have any announced carrier yet but the one the 1v the smallest one harkens back to the the old legend yeah I remember that and and also that even the hero the European hero a bunch of years ago that actually had a unibody metal design with you know this chin yeah which a lot of people hated so you know some people like to because was interesting but but anyway so that's the 1 V and then the one s is more of like a like a nexus one to me yeah or even you know I was even gonna say like like a sensation yeah something like that HTC sensation because it has a kind of rounded look and then it also has the will of good news is that all three phones are running ice cream sandwich which is great so and all they all have the new version of fence as well yes yes yeah they will have I think it's what is it four point oh I think it is yeah so well funny thing is uh HTC did talk to cnet and kind of describe what the new version the new version of sense will be like and they said that the whole idea is to you know since they've got ice cream sandwich there they wanted to make sense sort of act underneath the scene scenes so won't you know get all unless paraphrasing won't get up in your face and and you know kind of hit you with all these fancy graphics or whatever but they're trying to still provide the same functionality that sense offers you know for like social media integration and all that so that sounds pretty cool I definitely want to check it out in person hopefully so I know we have folks in Barcelona now that are at the show and definitely check out you know cnet.com for our mobile world congress coverage because we have lots of hands-on videos and photos of these devices 2 and the 1 i'm really curious about is actually the Galaxy Beam oh yeah yeah the Samsung Galaxy yeah when when I heard about that that was I was really excited yeah and it's interesting that there Samsung's kind of not not even going for the business that they're going for like younger people who would use a projector shoot to show off their photos and video right I don't know if I'm sold on that yet though yeah I'm not sure how I think there may be a neat party trick yeah but then after while you're like oh I don't really need this money at this protector yeah I mean I'm sure to adds a lot of wheat and a lot of like that takes a lot of battery life yea though I mean I would like to personally if I had something like that I mean okay yeah sure I would use it to play movies like at night or someone yeah maybe but I would definitely want to put some sort of planetarium on my that's what i would do immediately though developers out there planetary map man oh my god nightlight it's so great so great so that's what I want to see but I think we're right now we're gonna take a little break we'll be right back and talk more about mobile or congressman we have seen an expect to see so stay tuned hey everyone welcome back to the cnet dialed in podcast we are talking all things mobile or Congress today the show officially kicked off today today is Monday februari 27 2012 and we're just getting a low-down of all the news that rolled out rolled out yesterday from mole Congress and in this morning as well so stay tuned we're going to chat about what is happening first off I mean another thing that we wanted to mention and I want to mention was that the Sony that Sony had a press conference and they announced the Xperia P and the expiry you devices which they use the same design as the Xperia S which kind of blew everyone away at CES because it had such a pretty kick butt design very different it looks like an obelisk from you know 20 million years in the future that's an exact date everyone so but yeah I mean it's like it has this little thin area on the bottom that is transparent that lights up like a little crystal for notifications and all that I mean it's just a gorgeous phone the one thing is that these devices are kind of disappointed though because they're not dual-core not quad core and they're not they're not I did not even ice cream sandwich so at least in that yeah pretty sure yeah yeah that's the case so at least for now so that was a shocker so hopefully you know they'll uh they'll fix that up and you know maybe maybe maybe you know this is the thing of course you don't know how how much we really do need quad-core really rain you know I know we all like to chat about it yeah yeah quad cores less of an issue to me but the fact that it's running Gingerbread was an issue was kind of cool about the Xperia P though is that it could shoot 3d panoramas I read and I thought that was kind of interesting I haven't really heard that one before but it has a 8 megapixel Cameron could shoot 2d and 3d panoramas and I thought that was kind of nifty well the funny thing is um actually the back a few months ago I checked out the sony x sony ericsson xperia arc s that's a less alone um and that phone actually did have that capability to it has the capability to create 3d panoramas basically I think it takes the that it only has one lens on the camera one camera and it stitches basically images from the from one lens into another picture takes with the same lens to kind of create this virtual 3d effect so I'm not sure how many who actually going to use that but it you know it's interesting you know if you want to have pictures of your house in 3d you know yeah I mean I away maybe all the time yeah you know so I mean it's a cool it's an interesting it's something that sets it apart as well and it also they connect to the Sony well first of all these are the Sony the first phones are the two other phones that have been announced that are on only the sony brand not the sony x sony ericsson brand so that's that's significant and also they connect to you know so he talks about how they connected a sony entertainment network so you can you know rent movies and music and all that kind of stuff so we'll see how that goes but so yeah and then right after that there's the huawei also made another claim besides saying that they had the world's fastest smartphone they came out and said they have the first-ever quad-core 10 inch tablet now I just want to put out there folks I wrote a quick post on this and I realize oh my gosh how can I be saying this because the you know the Zeus what is it the transformer prime right yeah yeah that is technically the first quad-core tablet that's 10 inch 10.1 inch 1 inches should say um so I don't know what they're talking about really really i mean where does like how huawei up you know out there guys listening how can you call this a 10 the first quad-core 10 inch tablet when they already have one from a sous so what's this one is the first 10.1 inch tablet and this is the first 10 inch tablet they just didn't right oh my god but i'll let i let the i'm sure the lawyers you know a lot of lawyers are going to make a lot of money back and forth but I so we'll see how long that lasts and you know people got really upset at me for saying that for just titling up the post what I title it as I was just honestly I was just checking out what Huawei said in their own press release so and it's all over the web site so okay but fair enough I here which saying maybe it's not you know they're definitely trying to play a game here so uh and then soul in you're talking about you know you saw the or at least wrote about the new nokia phones as well that were announced this morning yeah I saw it well I was I saw it streamed it was I was announced at 1130pm through one a.m. pacific time so well that was a great way to spend the night but is but it was really interesting they announced um i think for new phones it's a lot of its three the 203 203 and 302 which is kind of their lower and phones in the Asha family but the most interesting one is their new Lumia model it's the Lumia 610 and they made some announcements about the Lumia 900 that's been already out the 900s got to go global with with a Roger wireless in Canada oh yeah Rogers yeah and some news about going to China which we kind of expected but the the new Lumia 610 is their kind of lower not lower end but it's just for a younger audience they say it will be running Windows Phone tango and it has a five minute mango you mean mango oh no tangos the upcoming update oh really yeah crap that's weak to do this just happened yeah this morning yeah oh my gosh and I go we'll have a 5 megapixel camera 3.2 inch display and before the subsidy it will be two hundred fifty four dollars but over here in the United States I don't know how much it will cost because we do have subsidy prices so and it's going to be um they talked about how it's going to be really integrated with xbox live users so I don't have an xbox account so that wasn't that didn't really matter to me but I know people who have and I think that they'd probably be excited about this phone if they have an xbox account that sounds pretty good though I'm sold you know dealing and grappling with the idea that this thing is called tango there is a mango can you possibly make it more confusing I think it's just ending a no that's their thing right oh yeah that's kind of oh yeah so there's a mango so what's the next one gonna be uh bingo bongo something like that something like that what has to be a fruit though or some kind of well tank was unfair all right anyway uh lets smartphone names are just becoming so over the top um and then Lynn you you were talking about the the also the ad okay oh aight 808 PureView um there was a teaser a couple of days ago where it was just kind of like Nokia released this kind of video about people in the snow and I mentioned something pure was going to come and I mentioned it the word pier like three times and then finally found out it's this new model called 808 PureView and it has a 41 megapixel camera that is ridiculous a gratuitous 41 degrees ever which is gonna cost like a five hundred thousand dollars um 605 um I know these numbers are really weird but it's cuz it's in euros and when they say dude seƱores it was like a kind of flat right but it was um it wasn't even everman 605 it's coming out in May and yeah and they talk about how the playback for the audio is really great cd-quality audio playback it has dolby headphone technology and just a lot of for the camera lovers I would think that this is what the phones for now I wonder it now it's a world of ice though right it's not it hasn't they haven't seen any carrier no they didn't mention anything guys yeah but it's 605 euros so yeah you have that in your near bank there and they're talking about like how you could take pictures and blow it up and it'll be really clear and and if you want to make a poster out of something then this is kind of the phone for you to do it and we thought I thought that was kind of interesting just because it's nice to have a high resolution camera but I had never taken a picture and thought I should make a billboard out of this phone yeah I think Josh Goldman actually made a good point in a tweet earlier this morning and it's not necessarily about the 41 megapixels about high resolution photos but rather about digital zooming things like that so you know it doesn't lose quality when you yeah and I think we've seen like with caramel phones it's not it doesn't just because it has a higher pixel megapixel camera doesn't always mean you're gonna get the best picture quality and you know exactly I would think after like 12 megapixels yeah like the time for too late okay yeah so yeah I mean you know definitely you know camera phones are you know cameras on phones or phones being used as cameras is a huge trend so you know definitely want to keep an eye on that because HTC with their new phones also said that their cameras are there phones have awesome cameras so it's definitely a trend that you know people want to take lots of pictures with their with their phone aspose of their camera and let's you know let's just move on out actually really quick because we're running out of time but let's talk about a really quick i'll just mention one review that I wrote for you guys out there we haven't been writing many reviews this week just because of mobile or Congress but I took a look at the job support bluetooth headset it's not I wasn't that impressed with it to be honest maybe just because my ears are too too small but I couldn't fit in my ears and if you know had a very uncomfortable fit but you know it's waterproof it's rugged but it's a little pricey yet $99 bluetooth headset that's stereo so you can connect to your phone and have you know make calls that kind of thing you can definitely check out the review online cnet com and that's pretty much the show except we're going to just you know if I think we can take a look really quick at one read your email I don't know if you guys will be able to help me with this but Brian slit who sent us an email basically asking you know what kind of unlock device could he get on verizon that does LTE to me I don't know I mean I feel his pain because I know that everybody wants some LTE love there but unlock devices are typically gsm I haven't really I mean we talked about people trying to use unlocked cdma devices from other carriers that might work but I haven't heard of anyone actually doing that and it's also not exactly the most legal thing to do so and there might just boot you off the network so i can you hook it up so i don't think there's a way to do it but I don't know Bonnie and you probably haven't heard of anybody mean is he is he like committed to staying like that he wants us to want to stay yeah I want Stan verizon that's why so gavotte it gets tricky ya feelin wait device ism yeah I mean LTE technically because I mean AT&T is using LTE know right so and there but they have a kind of a hybrid network though yeah yeah so there's no I mean yeah it doesn't look like the Chancellor to good my feeling is you know trying since your contractors up maybe should check out some other carriers see what other LTE options available I know that the Galaxy Note delivered some really blazing 4G LTE speeds on AT&T in my view so I'm you know it looks like their network is pretty nice so you want to maybe shop around take a look at what other phones available and ATT is gonna be having a lot of new phones being announced within the next few months to so definitely check that out so there you have it folks you have just listened to us for a full half hour so hopefully you had a great time and we're gonna we're going to sign off now but you know as always if you want to talk to us send any feedback to us just email us at dialed in at cnet com or leave us an old-school traditional voicemail at eight six six four zero two two 638 you can also read all the news at dialed in cnet com and check out the podcast at podcast cnet com as well as other podcasts that we produce so thanks for listening and we'll see you guys next week bye all right bye guys
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